We recently reported on the announcement of Firmcoin , a reprogrammable physical bitcoin token. This can be thought of as an option between Bitbills or Casascius coins and the Trezor hardware wallet . The amount that it carries is not fixed, but it’s cheap enough to be exchanged as a physical token. We spoke to the man behind Firmcoin, Sergio Lerner to find out more. Q. What is your background and training in? SL: I was an assistant teacher in Cryptography at University of Buenos Aires. I have a Masters in Computer Science, and my thesis was on advances in Cryptography in Mental Poker protocols. I hold four patents on cryptographic apparatus and methods. I worked more than fifteen years in computer security and code breaking, both for the private sector and for the Argentinian government. I write about crypto in my blog (bitslog.wordpress.com ). I received two awards in co...